Needle strips of the general type can be disposed on various kinds of textile combs. In particular, they are used as so-called top combs in combing machines for wool or synthetic fibers, and also for cotton. In these cases, the top comb must clean out the pieces of fiber that are not captured by a circular comb located before the top comb when viewed in the direction of feed of the fiber tuft. This construction regularly causes heavy loading on top combs, and impurities in the wool or cotton, which may consist of pieces of straw or neps, settle on them. Short fibers or contaminants then lodge in the gaps between the laminar, longitudinally oriented needles.
A known process for cleaning these parts in wool combing machines is to dispose cleaning blades on both sides to rake the top combs clean after each comb cycle. Furthermore, the use of cleaning brushes in wool combing machines is known. However, these known cleaning processes thus require the expenditure of additional mechanical work in order to accomplish the cleaning operation. The cleaning blades or other cleaning elements must execute a linear movement or the top comb, if movably disposed, must be directed past the cleaning elements when it is withdrawn. Since the needles in the top comb strips are tempered, and since the cleaning elements must also be tempered abrasion occurs between the cleaning elements and the needles which can lead to the formation of burrs. In any event unavoidable wear phenomena appear.
In cotton combing machines, the available space in the vicinity of the top combs is as a rule so cramped that mechanical cleaning cannot be accomplished at all. The result of this is that the contaminants that are contained in the cotton and combed out by the top comb accumulate on the latter. They can only be removed by stopping the machine and performing manual cleaning.